#PositiveVibes - Deep Rest

By John R. Nocero

The VIBE: Stop playing the character

When I think of a great Buddhist teacher, Jim Carrey isn’t the first to come to mind. But wow. Rushton (2017) characterizes some of pretty profound things to say about this complicated, fun, difficult, and beautiful thing we call the human experience, especially around depression. He says depression is “deep rest,” that your body needs from essentially playing a character in your life. Carrey shares the startling realization he came to after years of fame: it’s totally pointless to spend our whole lives creating and curating some specific identity for ourselves. This is all ego: desiring to be important, to be someone, to matter. In reality, this grasping at a singular identity brings us only pain and suffering, for three main reasons. One, it introduces a separation between us and all other beings that dishonors our inherent, interconnected nature. Two, it deludes us into thinking that things are not supposed to change—that we are not supposed to change. Three, it leads us away from resting in our own basic goodness, as it makes us feel that we aren’t enough just as we are, right now. The antidote to this suffering is to let go of this desire to be “someone.” As Carrey beautifully puts it, “The feeling of wholeness is a different feeling than me-ness.” To feel whole, we must let go of trying to maintain an image of “me.”

Much of the issues that I had in my 20’s and 30s stemmed from the image of trying to maintain me, or at least the identity of what I wanted the world to see. It really was developing a great relationship with myself, least of which took accepting me who I was and loving the man I see in the mirror. I know dark. I know sadness and I know pain almost better than anyone. But I know light, and good and laughter and sunshine too. Life is a mix of both. There will always be dark days, weeks or months where our problems seem insurmountable or every day feels like a journey through the American Gladiators gauntlet. On the other hand, sometimes resolutions or positive progress can happen quickly, far quicker than we imagined. The one thing we need to do is keep moving forward in faith and with patience. We may not be able to eradicate the difficulties immediately, but we can ease them, make the expedition more bearable and keep going in the right direction.

#dreamteam

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